Major League Gardening — Mississauga Hacks 2020 Project
Introduction
Hi everyone! My name is Jay and I’m a design and tech enthusiast. I will be using this platform to present my design work along with side projects I’ve created. For my first case study, I will be presenting a hackathon project that I worked on with a team during the summer. My team members and I created Major League Gardening — an interactive platform for aspiring gardeners to share, learn and compete with those in the community. As I was the designer of the team, I was tasked with designing the UI/UX on Adobe XD. This was my first time experimenting with UI/UX design and I certainly got to learn a lot along the way. Through this hackathon, I was able to enter an entirely new realm of design and expose myself to prototyping, ideating and the design thinking process. As this was my first time experimenting with the software, I used a free UI kit for inspiration. In this article, I will be walking through our ideation process and the experience/skills we gained through this hackathon. Feel free to view our prototype through the link below along with a walkthrough video that our team created.
Context
For this hackathon, our team was inspired by the social issues surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. The biggest challenge we saw was that people could no longer go outside and get fresh air. Rather, they were confined to their daily routines at home. This could get depressing, which is why we wanted to create an app that allows users to go outside, connect with others, and still practice social distancing at the same time. Major League Gardening takes casual gardening to the next level, giving users the incentive to go outside to garden and compete with fellow gardeners all across the world through a competitive social media application.
How it works
The app is designed as a social media platform for gardeners to share their plants with others and participate in playful gardening challenges/missions to learn more about gardening. The competitive nature of the app allows users to take on new gardening projects to “level up” and compare their scores with friends and other gardeners around the world. You can view a feed of all the users you follow as well as upload and share pictures of your own plants. The app even offers videos and articles from professional gardeners to welcome beginners. All in all, this is your one-stop-shop for the ultimate gardening experience.
Challenges we ran into
We had some design issues when it came to actually develop the interface of the app. Some buttons and scroll features weren’t working, and the search bar of the feed would oddly stick onto the posts. We were able to solve the problems by working together and layering various textures to make the search bars and buttons feel more natural and integrated into the software.
Accomplishments I was proud of
I was really proud to have a full designed a working prototype of the Major League Gardening App. It was an unbelievable feeling to see our team’s idea come to life through the application. From learning several new platforms in less than a day such as Adobe XD and illustrator to creating a successful prototype that functions extraordinarily, it was an amazing experience. Personally, this hackathon was truly the genesis of my UI/UX design journey and I can certainly say I gained a lot through the experience as I learned new concepts such as ideating, prototyping and more.
Next Steps & Future Plans
Conduct User Testing
In order to potentially deploy this application in the future, it is crucial to perform user testing to determine if the application can gain traction and to learn if it is feasible to launch this into the market.
Develop the Application and Strategize a Business Model
Due to time constraints and our limited knowledge on development, we were unable to code the application; however, we plan to do this in the future to transform it into a functional program that can be used by gardeners around the world. We want to start to invest our time into making the prototype a reality, and actually work on the back-end of the app and code a basic social media platform exclusively for gardeners. This would make our dreams of becoming entrepreneurs a reality and take us one step closer to achieving our goals. Being inspired by emerging technologies like AI we want to improve our platform to ensure that users are satisfied with our work. With the recognition that comes with winning such a prestigious event, we would like to scale our business and enter new markets around the world to maximize our potential growth.
Conclusion
Overall, competing in this hackathon was an amazing opportunity as it allowed me to enter the creative world of UI/UX Design. I am truly grateful for having the opportunity to design the prototype of our application because it gave me a chance to enhance my skills as a designer and apply them to other projects such as SpritTrackr & Mediatate. I hope to continue attending hackathons in the future to develop my skills as a designer.
